(HOST) Carrots aren’t particularly hard to grow, but commentator Henry Homeyer says they can be hard to grow well.
(HOMEYER) By now I should have learned everything I need to know about gardening. After all, I’ve been digging in the dirt for well over fifty years. But each year I learn something new.
Take something as simple as growing carrots. A few years ago I went to the Tunbridge World’s Fair and saw some carrots that were straight and perfect and eighteen inches long. Ever since, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure about my own ability to grow carrots. I’ve always grown normal, sort of ho-hum carrots. Tasty, yes, but nothing to show off. But if Joey Klein of Littlewood Farm in Plainfield can grow carrots eighteen inch long, I figure I should be able to grow carrots at least a foot long. I went to see Joey to learn the tricks of the trade.
Joey is an organic farmer with beautiful fields alongside the Winooski River. The soil is nice loam, rich and deep. He nurtures it with compost and aged manure. It’s great soil for carrots because it’s light and pretty much free of stones. He grows his carrots in wide raised beds and gives them plenty of space between rows. He weeds often and thins the carrots until they’re two inches apart. He spreads a little organic fertilizer on the surface of the soil in July for a burst of nutrition.
So last fall I prepared a special bed for this summer’s carrots. First I loosened the soil where my raised bed would go. Then, instead of just mounding up the soil the way I usually do, I built a wood-sided box, eight-inches tall for my carrots. I filled it with my best topsoil and mixed in lots of good compost and aged manure.
I planted my carrots the first week of May. And as the season progressed, I have paid close attention to the needs of my carrots. June was a dry month, so I watered at least every other day. Soil in raised beds dries out quickly because gravity pulls the water down and away.
I weeded with religious fervor. And I thinned the carrots early in the season – a tedious job, but important. After all, carrots compete with their carrot cousins as much as they would with weeds for moisture and soil nutrients. And, as Joey suggested, I’ve given my carrots a sprinkling of organic fertilizer and scratched it in.
Now I’m starting to see the results. As I thin from a one-inch spacing to a two-inch spacing I’m harvesting carrots that are as big around as my little finger, but already eight-inches long. By late summer those carrots will have grown, as my grandfather would have said, half way to China.
I may never be able to grow an eighteen-inch carrot, but I love trying. Getting a really good garden takes some extra time and effort. But when my grandson George comes to visit, he loves eating our carrots – and that makes it all worth while.
Henry Homeyer is a gardening writer and columnist.